AA HTS 3 / WINTER 2012 / WEEK 7

John HEJDUK vs.

DILLER + SCOFIDIO
(+1 BODY)/(+2 THEATRE)

Zenobia: The Wheel of Death by John Hejduk

K. Michael Hays -
The subject of (modernist) Human-
ism is the controlling and originat-
ing agent of meaning - therefore,
the subject imparts meaning onto
the object it confronts (or
constructs)
- this is known in philosophy the subject-object
problem (the I think, therefore I am of
Descartes)

subject & object are

distinctly separate bodies

Citta Ideale by Leon Battista Alberti, stemming from writing

in his work On the Art of Building in Ten Books
Citta Ideale by Leon Battista Alberti, stemming from writing
in his work On the Art of Building in Ten Books
invention of single-point perspective by Brunelleschi
projecting an image of the Florentine Bapistry
Etienne-Louis Boullees Cenotaph for Newton, image of the
night sky inside the Cenotaph
Le Corbusiers masterful hand over a model for the total
plan of Plan Voisin in Paris in 1925
Etienne-Louis Boullees Cenotaph for Newton, image of the
night sky inside the Cenotaph
Tschumis Advertisements for Architecture, image of Le Cor-
busiers Villa Savoye as it is decaying (no maintenance)
Tschumis rotten place -
The space where spatial praxis
meets mental constructs, the
convergence of two interdepen-
dent but mutually exclusive
aspects

This is due to the separation

between the praxis of architecture
(object-hood) and the intellectual
activity of architecture.

In this rotten place, this distinction

is threatened.
- distinction has existed since before Aliberti, in
Greek literature (like in Platos The Statesman)

Plato - architect is a ruler of work-

men and does not contribute
manual labour
Tschumis rotten place -
The threatening of this dis-
tinction between praxis and
theory espouses the soiled
remants of everyday life
- example used by Teyssot is Jim
Jarmuschs 1989 film Mystery Train

Girl: Jun, why do you only take

pictures of the rooms we stay in?

Jun: Those other things are in

my memory. The hotel rooms and the
airports are the things Ill forget.

This espousing calls into

question the condition of
the architects economy
and politic (as it is defined
by this distinction)
- aka you are a practicing architect,
or you are an academic
Corbusier, Eisenman, etc -
Capitalised on this dis-
tinction - can be seen as a
form of defensive measure
against the profane
- reaffirms the separation of defined
by the Humanist subject and object

* distinct bodies
* the master/slave
* the master/client
* mind/body
* genders (ie male/female)
* profane/polite
 American, 1929-2000
John HEJDUKs work did
not attempt to reaffirm this
dichtomy
- Vidler states, Hejduks project(s)
[...] is presented as a whole [...] as a
material to be submitted to the life
and consuming power of the context

Here we see Hejduk with an

interest to see what could
emerge from the belly of
the monster
- term borrowed from Donna
Haraways A Cyborg Manifesto

- clip from Metropolis (1927) by Fritz

Lang, when Freder enters the city of
the workers

Piranesis The Round Tower

The approach -
A means through with to engage
with the profane, perverse and
rotten is through a technological
approach
- Hejduk and Diller + Scofidio both use this
although they are different approaches

Both approaches originate from

the concept of the hybrid
- The hybrid is one which can be read as
being a feminist construction (for example,
the women drives Freder into the city of the
workers in Metropolis, it is her place)
 The approach -
A technological approach
which espouses the
everyday exposes the
female and the realm of
the feminine private
- what goes on behind
closed doors (domestic)
- Soren Kierkhaard -19th c Danish
philosopher) was the first to theo-
rise privateness

- Teyssot stated that paintings in

the genre of Hummels represent-
ed space as an inner world which
holds personal feelings and acts of
private thinking

Johann Erdmann Hummels Drawing Room in

Berlin, 1820-25
 Donna Haraway -
The hybrid can be used as
a metaphor to conceptu-
alise objects that result
from the uncovering the
perversity of the private
- the hybrid expresses suppressed
desires - sex, irony, hedonism,
fetishism, death, intimacy, war

Image from Daryl Weins Sex Positive

 Donna Haraway -
The hybrid for Haraway is
called the cyborg
- the cyborg has 3 requirements:

*must be a cybernetic
organism (- aka intelligent,
systemic)

* machine AND organism

(- aka it must be mind AND
body, subject AND object)

* must be a creature of fiction

AND of lived social reality

A painting by Lisa Foo (said to be a cyborg)

Rachel from Blade Runner (1982)

The cyborg -
Presented as virtually
indistinguishable from humans
despite their technological
nature
- clip from Blade Runner where Rachel
tries to prove her humanity and is told
that her memories are not her own

Six Million Dollar Man (1970s)

 In architecture -
The cyborg in Hejduks (and D+S)
architecture can be the means
through with the Post-Humanist
subject can emerge
- threatening the historical dichotomy of:

* the body from architecture

* the subject from the object

*** the practice of architecture from

the theory of architecture

- architecture takes on perverse, prosthetic,

narrative and human-like qualities

Birth Machine (1967) by HR Giger

Hejduks architecture -
Architectural cyborgs -
note: Vidler refers to his
works as vagabonds
- have a form of intelligence (are
systemic in narrative and in memory)

- are technological (use technique)

- are creatures both of fiction and of

reality (relate to a place & to a story)
 Collapse of Time (1986) -
one of 67 projects
designed to com-
memorate victims
of the Gestapo in
Berlin
- they were to be built in
front of the Gestapo HQ in
Berlin one at a time

- Hejduk: they were

signifying incremental
place and incremental
time

Collapse of Time erected in Bedford Square in 1986

by AA staff and students
Collapse of Time when upright was
said by Hejduk to be like a centaur
(from ancient Greek mythology
Collapse of Time when at 45 degrees was a cat Collapse of Time when flat was a coffin on wheels
Berlin Masques (1981) -
The masquse represent
the mediation between
inside , the private, the
perverse and outside, the
public and polite
- images from his sketch book
from Hejduks trips to Berlin

presented in Mask of Medusa

 Berlin Masques (1981) -
depicts 2 walled-in
camps with figures
- 1 male camp and1 female
camp with objects in captivity
with one straddling the
boundary

- have abstracted, human-like

qualities (are animorphic)

Berlin Masques showing two walled-in camps with

figure/character/objects of Hejduks residing inside
Berlin Masques showing one of the objects inside of
the walled-in camps with more character/figure/
objects residing inside - the private space
Vladivostok (1989) -
Architectural cyborgs come
fully to life, exposing inner
perverse worlds and the
conditions of each place
Hejduk has travelled to
- his architectures become both
collectively cyborgian and at the
same time are prostheses of Hejduk
himself
 Vladivostok (1989) -
They collectively battle
the same dilemma as
Rachel in Blade Runner
- cyborgs are called into
constantly question and
repositioned

- breaks the master/slave (etc)

dichotomy of the Humanist
subject, utilising technological
collective intelligence

Vladivostok figures in position to one another

The House of the Inhabitant who Refused to
Participate in plan - house, tower, hole, bleachers
At the exact level of the Participant
of Refusals empty cell there is af-
fixed upon the campo tower a mirror,
the precise elevation size of the
opposite cell. When the inhabitant of
the house stands in his empty room
he simply reflects himself upon the
mirror of the opposite tower.

Any citizen is permitted to climb the

ladder and enter the stone tower.
Once in the tower the citizen can see
the lone inhabitant across the campo
within his cell. The citizen can
observe without being observed.

There is only one risk for the hidden

observer. Another citizen may
release the overhead tower door
consequently enclosing within the
tower the citizen observer. (Hejduk)
(Liz) Diller + (Ricardo) Scofidio -
The human body becomes
architectures technological,
cyborgian site
- narratives are performed with a physicality
(this is different than Hejduks approach)

In 1985 designed a stage set

inspired by Marcel Duchamps
A Large Glass (Or the Bridge
Stripped Bare by her Bachelors)
1915-23[left]
- two glass panels suspended vertically, de-
picting a machinic-like bride in the top gald
(Brides Domain) and 9 bachelors separated
from her below (Bachelors Apparatus) with
a horizon line between (Brides Clothes)
A Delay in Glass (or Rotary Notary and His Hot Plate)
and the stage set apparatus designed by D+S
American Mysteries (1981) and the stage set - the
architecture becomes both medium and message
House of the Suicide and House
of the Mother of the Suicide -
Hejduks 12x12 cubes
with metal shards
pointing outsides,
drawing the Mother in
and the Suicide out
- the gaze of the Mother is
pointed inwards, inside there
is a small platform, when the
Mother stands on the platform
she looks through a small slit
to a slit in the elevation of the
House of the Suicide
A Delay in Glass and the stage set during the
performance, in animation, priviledging the body
A Delay in Glass and the view of the rotating door and
the mirror between the bride and her bachelor
 Hejduk vs D+S -
D+S introduces the
concept of media
(through technology)
as that which can
transgress the sub-
ject/object dichotomy,
while Hejduk remains
bound by architectural
forms

Thanks.
Vladivostok and two of Hejduks A Delay in Glass and the reflection of
characters questioning and the bride in the mirror
repositioning